Along the next 17 days, Portugal becomes the Mecca for orienteers from all over the World. A unique orienteering opportunity to compete, train and have fun in the best terrains of Portugal is the main proposal of a triple journey that starts today. This weekend, CPOC presents you the Lisbon International Orienteering Meeting LIOM 2016, with a double journey on Saturday in the urban areas of Alfama and Oeiras and end up taking you through some of the best forests near Lisbon on a WRE Long Distance in Lagoa de Albufeira.
Welcome to the Lisbon International Orienteering Meeting LIOM 2016. This will be the first ever CPOC event counting with two WRE competitions. The event will start today with a Model Event in Bairro Alto, in the heart of Lisbon. On the morning of the 30th it will follow the most awaited moment of the event with an Urban Sprint in Alfama, also inside Lisbon, counting for the Sprint World Ranking. On the afternoon, the second stage will take the participants to Oeiras, this time for a Urban Middle course, using for the first time the whole Park of Poets, with his third and last phase opening only on the 2014's summer.
On sunday, the 31st, it will take place the Long Distance in Sesimbra, counting for the IOF World Ranking Event. All stages will also count for the Vitalis Portuguese FootO Cup 2016. Besides the event, there are multiple urban maps (and some forest ones in Jamor, Monsanto and Serra de Sintra) available for training in Lisbon and surroundings.
LIOM 2016 detailed program
29th January 2016
14:00 - Urban Model Event - Bairro Alto (Lisbon)
18:00 - Closing time for the model event
30th January 2016
08:00 - Opening Event Centre
09:45 - Deadline for quarantine entry
10:00 - World Ranking Sprint in Alfama (Lisbon)
12:30 - Prize Winning Ceremony for WRE Sprint Elite
15:00 - Urban Middle Distance - First start (Parque dos Poetas - Oeiras)
31st January 2016
08:00 - Opening Event Centre
09:30 - Long Distance (WRE) – First start (Lagoa de Albufeira - Sesimbra)
13:00 - Prize Winning and Close Ceremony (Lagoa de Albufeira - Sesimbra)
Note: All timings are in local time (GMT timezone).
Participants
The entries are closed since last Saturday, when the participants were in number of 845 from 26 different nations. Portugal is the most represented country (607 athletes), but we can still see a good number of athletes from Norway (36), Great Britain (24), Sweden (20), Spain (18), Brazil (16) and Poland (15). Israel, Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Uganda are also countries represented at LIOM 2016.
Daniel Hubmann, from Switzerland, is the brightest star of the competition. The current IOF World Ranking leader, both in sprint and forest distances, will have in the British David Schorah and Chris Smithard, the Finnish Olli-Markus Taivanen and the Portuguese Tiago Gingão Leal and Tiago Martins Aires his biggest opponents. As for the Women Elite, the Russian Galina Vinogradova and the British Catherine Taylor share the attention, but the British Alice Leake and Kirstin Maxwell, the Norwegian Lone Karin Brochmann and Kristine Fjellanger, the Swedish Kristin Lofgren and the Finnish Marika Teini also have a word to say.
Terrain and useful information
Stage 1 - WRE Sprint
The event will take place on a urban location with some traffic and with many people walking (mainly tourists). The event was scheduled for a Saturday morning to reduce the number of people in the competition área, but with so many narrow streets there may happen difficult situations to run trough some areas and we ask every participant to respect those who are calmly walking in Alfama and to take care concerning moving vehicles. In some crossings, there will be organizers helping participants.
The courses where set with an higher climbing rate than usual in sprint races. They were planned not to amplify unnecessarily the climbing rate, and there are connections where different options can lead to very different climbing meters. The start will be higher than the arrival. Pre-start will be made 6 minutes before the real starting time. The clock in quarantine will show the calling time, about 9 minutes sooner than the real time.
Stage 2 - Urban Middle Distance
There will be no quarantine procedures in stage 2, but the entrance to Parque dos Poetas will be forbidden before the event. The start location will be closeby to the Hard Floor pavillion, so we recommend free parking on the avenues closeby to the pavillion. The Arena will be inside Parque dos Poetas, 200 metres away from the Start.
Stage 3 - WRE Long Distance
The Arena on the 3rd stage in Lagoa de Albufeira (Sesimbra) will be very difficult to reach by public transportation. So, for those who doesn't have a private vehicle, CPOC will offer the possibility of going on a bus to the Arena. That possibility will be free of charge but the bus will have only 50 places available. CPOC already contacted other clubs with buses to make it possible for everyone to go to Sesimbra from the hard floor.
The time schedule for the bus will be:
07:30 - Leaving Hard Floor in Paço de Arcos
08:00 - Stoping in Marquês de Pombal (Lisbon) to get more participants lodged in Lisbon
08:45 - Estimated time of arrival at the Arena
To make possible to arrange transportation for all participants, organizers need that all requests can be stated again at the Event Centre with the number of needed places by group and the place where to take the bus.
Other information
- Car keys and bags can be stored at the Event Centre;
- First aid on Event Centre;
- Orienteering short briefings for all who will ask for them closeby to the start on the 1st stage (Alfama) and the 3rd stage (Sesimbra);
- LIOM bib number is mandatory. If the participant will not have it on the start, he won't be allowed to start. If an athlete will loose his bib number, another one will be available on the Event Centre for 1 euro;
- SI Card changes must be reported on the Event Centre;
- There will be no map hold at the end of the courses, so hopefully all athletes will have fair-play, not showing their maps to other athletes that didn't start their courses.
- Time limit for each course are 1h30 for WRE sprint, 2 hours for Middle Urban Distance and 3 hours for the WRE Long Distance.
- Results system in LIOM 2016: Individual and club results scored using the point system, adding points of the three stages all with same weight (WRE Sprint + Urban Middle Distance + WRE Long Distance).
For further information, please visit the Event's website, at http://liom.cpoc.pt/.
Joaquim Margarido